New Zealand Blasts Into A Sense Of Itself

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — For this small South Pacific nation more or less in between Australia and the South Pole, the sudden limelight from its diplomatic battle with France has been dazzling.

Over the last three months, the real-life sinking by French agents of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior has been a drama almost too good to be true. Much to their astonishment, New Zealanders have found themselves playing the role of hero, as the French government concedes more and more guilt.

And that is not all. A dispute over the Australian-American-New Zealand defense alliance known as ANZUS has pitted New Zealand against a second Western giant, the United States.

With their insistence on barring nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships, New Zealanders have pushed Washington reluctantly toward revising or abandoning the treaty that has served the partners without serious problems since 1952.

The parallel wrangles with two Western allies have aroused an uncomfortable mix here of self-assurance for the present and of uneasiness about future relations with countries seen as New Zealand`s protectors.

France is considered a key ally in the European Economic Community, whose backing has helped ensure a market for the agricultural exports on which New Zealand`s economy relies.

Washington`s friendship and its defense commitments have provided an essential sense of security for a nation acutely aware of its isolation from its Western allies.

For the moment, there is a heady sense here of holding the moral high ground in the two disputes, both of which grow out of New Zealand`s opposition to nuclear arms. Prime Minister David Lange, taking a hard line in both cases, appears so far to have been getting the best of things.

The garrulous prime minister shows every sign of enjoying himself as much as he did in a recent debate over nuclear arms at Oxford University in which it was generally agreed that he trounced Jerry Falwell, leader of the Christian evangelical lobbying group known as Moral Majority.

``It boosts New Zealand`s profile in the world, although the point of that is somewhat moot,`` Lange said of New Zealand`s newfound international prominence. ``We would also have a higher profile if we had a calf with eight legs.``

Lange, who spoke in an interview recently, conceded that two international crises at the same time were stretching the resources of his government. He illustrated his own reaction to the situation by seizing a handful of his graying hair and tearing at it.

Critics led by the opposition National Party leader, Jim McLay, are accusing Lange of having too good a time, even of being a clown, and they say he is not sufficiently concerned about the dangers of alienating the country`s allies.

It is an unsettling feeling for many people in a nation that has gained much of its sense of identity from its closeness to strong allies.

One newspaper columnist this week quoted a former defense minister, Frank Corner, who spoke of the split personality of a British-oriented society situated in the South Pacific.

``To live in a place to which you are not emotionally attached, and to be attached to a place in which you do not live, is an unstable basis for a foreign policy,`` Corner said.

With its new assertiveness toward its big brothers in the West, and its emphasis on South Pacific regional security, New Zealand may, in spite of itself, have begun to address this question.

``My mother always used to refer to England as home, although she was born here,`` said a middle-aged doctor, Ian Prior. ``Then after World War II, it was America we all looked toward. Now perhaps we are starting to feel ourselves a nation that can stand on its own feet. The Maori call it tutangata --to stand tall.``

The use by the doctor of a word from the language of New Zealand`s indigenous minority was one more small sign that the nation is moving toward a distinctive character of its own.